


Bobby Singer, Paranoid Bastard

by herbailiwick



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Soulless Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 20:42:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For hard-sunshine.</p><p>  <a href="http://askboxmemes.tumblr.com/post/31099194023/even-more-drabbles">
    <em>"Leave a “<strong>Haunt Me</strong>” in my ask, and I will write a drabble about one character watching over another."</em>
  </a></p><p>I was going to make this about ghostly haunting, but I went for something Soulless!Sam-related instead. Takes place in the gap, when Soulless!Sam meets up with Bobby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bobby Singer, Paranoid Bastard

Bobby stares at the man on his doorstep until his brain finally decides he's really awake. The way Sam takes in Bobby's appearance, the way he seems to observe and file away the information for God knows what reasons, the way he meets Bobby's gaze so openly and tilts his head a little like the openness is a fact and not a choice? It's all...new.

Neither of them say anything. Bobby peers around Sam to the outside. There's no electrical storm. There's no rain. There's a light breeze and warm sunlight and everything looks so normal. He doesn't feel cold, and Sam isn't exactly flickering. "Sam?" he finally says, like it's a long shot.

"Hey, Bobby." Sam sniffs blankly and just sort of stands there as Bobby reaches out. His eyes follow Bobby's hand as it curls into his hair and sort of tugs. It's the same length it was a couple weeks back when Sam had done what he'd had to do, when Sam had been a hero and Bobby'd tried to be one too. "Hey, so?" Sam says, eyeing the hand tugging at his hair, "you gonna let me in?"

Bobby blinks, pauses, shrugs. He doesn't let go of the hair. In fact, he curls his fingers through it more firmly. It's clean, soft, and he scratches at Sam's scalp lightly, coaxingly, slightly shocked when Sam leans forward with a groan of surprise. Really, it's the most normal reaction he's gotten out of Sam yet. 

Sam is oddly compliant. They've never exactly done anything like this in broad daylight before. Bobby suddenly releases the hair, sliding his fingers out from their places among the curtain of soft strands.

"That felt good," Sam comments, voice practically a purr.

Bobby swallows and says, "You know I'm gonna have to put you through a few tests. Protocol." 

"If you didn't, I'd have to run some tests on _you_ ," Sam points out with a little smirk like he thinks he's hilarious.

Bobby rolls his eyes. 

Despite all the weird behavior, Sam passes all of Bobby's tests. Humanity more or less confirmed, Bobby wonders if he might be a zombie all the same. It's not the first time his home has been haunted by the undead, after all. Bobby swallows at the odd scratch in his throat at the thought.

"So?" he finally asks as Sam sips more of the holy water-laced beer.

"So?"

"How'd you swing it?" Bobby demands quietly. "How are you back, Sam? Was it...the Big Kahuna in the sky?" Sure, it's nice to know God has your back, that God will save your boys, but it's terrifying too. God works in mysterious ways, and in Bobby's experience mysteries don't lead to anything pretty.

Sam laughs, an easy, unrestrained laugh that makes the hair at the back of Bobby's neck raise. "It'd make sense," Sam nods. "He does like to meddle, doesn't he?"

Bobby blinks and thinks about the times he and Sam had exchanged scripture or prayed together. Little stolen moments of faith that belonged to them and them alone. And now, maybe Sam's not going to be the praying type. It's hard to say.

Sam stays weird all evening. He comments on how much he hates Bobby's coffee. He wins two games of chess so easily that Bobby's head spins in a way that almost makes him nauseous.

And while Bobby's watching the news, Sam makes a joke about a local murder so awful and not worth repeating that Bobby actually stands up to pace for a second, that he actually needs to stop sitting next to Sam in order to wrap his head around it. 

It's disturbing, to say the least. It's like Sam, but...well, not _unplugged_ , maybe _plugged in_ , maybe Sam Deluxe. Maybe it's Sam having finally come back altered like Dean had worried about the first time. Well, Hell could do that to a guy, Bobby supposes, since he doesn't really know.

Not much he can do about it until he knows more, but he doesn't have to like it. 

And when Bobby wakes up in the middle of the night to see this new Sam watching him sleep, just sort of hovering, haunting him, blankly watching like some sort of serial killer analyzing a victim before a strike, Bobby gets up, makes up some eggs and bacon he instructs Sam to eat, and tells him not to do it again. Sam agrees all too easily, nodding, chewing, looking sort of lost in the flavor of the food.

"Thanks, Bobby," he grins, shoveling food into his mouth in a way the old Sam hadn't really been big on.

"Yeah, no problem," Bobby says, and heads to bed. He's not woken up again, so he has to assume that Sam had respected his wishes.

Trilling thoughts of Sam's new nuances creep into Bobby's head and haunt him in little twisting turns. Dean's years-old question haunts him at the base of it all, like the lone song of a heartbroken werewolf holding onto its last silver-laced breaths. But, true to his word, as true to it as he can be anyway, Back from Hell Sam doesn't haunt Bobby's room while he sleeps anymore. 

Turns out, poor Sam doesn't sleep. But, somehow, for some ridiculous, screwed-up reason, he's not a zombie. Nothing about zombies fits. He's just...weird. Then again, a lot of lore is going screwy, so who knows. Maybe Sam _is_ a zombie, but he doesn't snap, he never snaps.  

And he's true to his word, Sam, even if the honesty of his words is overwhelming now. He watches and lingers and hunts things down with a slick quiet, like a well-oiled machine, like a robot, like a solid and sturdy and calculated sort of ghost. 

His hunting is better than ever. And his haunting is too. Bobby never quite trusts him all the way, all too tuned-in, because the laughter, the gaze, the sudden inability to understand certain things about people that the old Sam could have written sap-filled essays on, they all haunt Bobby well enough to keep him on his paranoid toes. 

Good thing, too. The paranoia turns out to be a very good thing.


End file.
